Stone and Shadow
by Assimbya
Summary: AU from Queen of Attolia. Attolia takes what she wants. Written for Yuletide 2017.


She did not entrust her message to the unsteady memory of a messenger worn with the haste and urgency of his journey. She instead committed it to paper, hearing the ringing steadiness of her voice as she dictated, feeling the anticipation of her advisors, of smiling Nahuseresh, as they waited upon her next word.

 _The justice of Attolia is swift and unyielding, and has been enacted by tradition and right. Yet still questions remain that concern us both. Just as the flow of Aracthus into our land has been halted, so too is all commerce between Attolia and Eddis in danger. We hold something of yours in safe-keeping, but will release it into your hands alone._

 _My sister Queen, the safety of our kingdoms and the security of our borders has never been more a shared concern; if theft and criminal influences threaten one, than they threaten all. We ask your presence at our court, so we can speak further of these matters, and come to an agreement which honors the gods and the tradition._

Nahuseresh had offered his slave-secretary to write the message for her, and she watched him for a moment as she spoke. He seemed taken up fully with his task, forehead wrinkled with focus and his writing hand moving quickly and efficiently. Only the darting glances of his eyes hinted at the working of his mind behind his task, his canny intelligence. She let herself dwell for a moment on the speed and dexterity of his fingers, this man who made his own skill into a tool to be used by those who did not respect it.

And then she closed away the thought and turned to his master, schooling her expression into a half-smile. "I don't know if she will come," she said, as if it was an admission, "if the Thief means so much to her."

She lied, of course.

"Do not let me presume to much, your majesty," Nahuseresh began, leading towards her, "but I wonder at the bargain you will offer to the Queen of Eddis if she should arrive."

She quelled her instincts and mirrored his movement, so that only a scant few inches separated them. "I am inspired," she said, "by the stories you have told of your own Emperor's greatness; of how little he would tolerate such an insult as the one Eddis has inflicted upon us. I would ask your counsel in how to proceed."

* * *

When she was a girl, Attolia had in her possession a jewelry box, inlaid with bronze and made up of an intricate assemblage of drawers and compartments, each containing separately a single pendant or pair of earrings. When folded up, its surface was smooth and even, the bronze pattern delighting the eye while not hinting at the layers within.

As a woman and as queen she thought sometimes that she arranged her mind as she had once arranged the jewelry within that box; each item, each memory and calculation and plan in its own compartment, to be efficiently taken out and placed away as the occasion required. To have Eugenides captive within her palace, then, felt correct, appropriate; the thief who made it his business to cross boundaries, to enter spaces that were not his own, was now contained, held, put into his place.

Yet knowing this somehow did not allow her to stop thinking of him. It was not the fact of his screams, of his begging - she was sure of this. Screams were nothing. So many had begged for their lives before her, so many had cursed her before they died. Eugenides had not cursed her. It was the open vulnerability in his eyes as her offered himself to her, in service, in penitence. It was the sound of his prayers and the fact that, as he looked at her in terror, it seemed to be a goddess that he saw.

(The first time that she arrested him, he smiled in her face and compared her to his Queen. This time, he had not done that. He did not dare to mock her. There was her victory; to blot out with her authority even that act of comparison. Irene did not take pleasure in the executions she had ordered throughout the years of her reign, but a thrill of satisfaction came over her at the thoroughness of Eugenides' wretchedness, the abnegation to which he was given over. And then the thrill was gone, and there was only the desolate iron weight of responsibility.)

He was delirious with fever, and she demanded that the guards leave her alone with him. He looked at her with a glassy eyes and for a moment she watched his chest rise and fall with the rapid pace of his breath.

Then she spoke. "What would she give for you?" she asked him, her voice easy, quiet.

He swallowed hard, and it seemed a moment before he could gather words into his mouth. "I have already given," he said, "blood sacrifice, blood tribute. Ask anyone; they'll tell you I am a pious man. But what the gods give for us in return - I cannot say. She gave me this pain. She gave me to the torturer with her face -" he groaned sharply, suddenly, his exhale ragged.

Irene felt frustrated. "No," she said, "what would she give for you? Your queen."

For an instant, his eyes met hers, and then his gaze slipped away, as if he could not tolerate maintaining the contact for longer. "I am worthless to her now."

Irene wanted to laugh, and did not. "I doubt that."

Eugenides, however, did laugh, at the sound was horrible, raw and eerie. "You have made me nothing."

"You could be a hero," she said sharply, "if she chose to make you one. The martyr-thief, wearing the sign of his sacrifice on his sleeve. So to speak. If she were to set her land against my own, then you, still alive, could be the king of the board, frozen yet always visible while the Queens around you duel. So, tell me - what would she give for you?"

Irene felt her heart beat as she waited for his answer.

"My lady," he said, finally, "she would give me to you. That she would give, for my life."

"Yes," Irene said, "a tool I cannot use, which to her is beyond price. So you have said."

He did not answer; she could not tell whether it was because he was in too much pain, or he had nothing more to say.

"Listen," she told him, feeling command in her wrists and soles and the weight of the circlet on her forehead. "I may spare your life."

Again, he looked at her. His questions hung in the air between them.

He was hers, captive, abject, feverish, waiting for her choice. She wanted, almost, to prolong the moment of it.

"I may take what Eddis has offered. I may find a place for you in service to Attolia."

Now his gaze upon her was steady, despite the sweat on his neck and forehead, despite the glassiness of his eyes.

"But tell me, first - what do you see when you look at me?"

He did not hesitate. "I see the face of my goddess."

"What would you do for your goddess?"

"Anything."

She smiled. "Would you betray your Queen?"

He paused too long.

"Good," she told him briskly, "I have no time for traitors."

She opened her fist and let one of the earrings that he had placed by her bed in his endless pranks fall to the floor in front of him, gold glittering on the gray stone. He saw them, and looked again up at her. "I will hold your to your promises," she said.

"And I will keep them," he answered in return.

Irene left him then. As she stepped from the cell she noticed her heart loud and fast in her ears, as if she had been dancing. She ordered the guards to move Eugenides out of the dungeons and into a guest chamber.

* * *

She met with Relius late at night, so that no one but her closest handmaidens were aware of the meeting. She would not have the word of it spread to Nahuseresh, who had grown himself into the shape of her palace like a clinging vine, his eyes and ears everywhere.

They had been debating her plan from the moment she had conceived it; detail after risky detail had been examined from each angle, possibilities imagined to their conclusions.

"We still need evidence," Irene said, feeling the weariness of the late hour and their circuitous conversation tugging at her.

"I have been looking into it," Relius told her, "but there is no one in our employ who can write in the Mede language well enough for a convincing forgery."

"Without evidence, we are committing an act of international warfare. Their ships will be on our shores by summer." She stopped, tapping her fingers against the surface of the wooden table. "Have you attempted to develop anyone of the ambassador's retinue?"

"Unsuccessfully. They're all trained in subterfuge and diplomacy; we cannot risk an open approach, and our subtler ones have failed."

"His secretary. The slave."

"Kamet?" Relius frowned. "He is the most loyal to Nahuseresh, by all accounts. He has been in service since childhood, and is trusted implicitly. Approaching him could expose us instantly."

"Then we're careful. But try it. Made the approach yourself, personally."

"We'll offer him freedom, within Attolia? It's true, that could be much for a slave."

"No. Well, we do offer that, but not primarily." She thought of the fast-moving hands, the carefully blank face. Irene knew what it was to be overlooked, undervalued. She thought that Kamet was a man she would want in her own employ. "Offer him respect."

* * *

Helen's expression was hard, fixed; so unlike the mobile, easy smile that Irene remembered from the last time she had seen the Queen of Eddis. Her feet, upon the polished wood of the private chamber where Irene received her, seemed grown into the ground, unmovable.

For a moment, Irene felt a twinge of what could not quite have been guilt; I have made her like myself, she thought, I have made her stone. But the thought was soon gone; Helen was not like Irene. Though the pressures of her reign and the terror of the previous weeks had changed her, this change was like wood beginning to petrify, never true stone. Helen had roots; she grew, even when she appeared to be still.

Irene noted the positions of the guards around the room; both the Attolian and Eddisian soldiers appeared on high alert, focused towards the two queens.

"Welcome," Irene said, "most honored Queen of Eddis, my sister."

Helen inclined her head; all that graciousness demanded of her as Irene's equal in rank. "I have come as your message requested, Queen of Attolia."

"I thank you for that," Irene told her. She exhaled slowly, watching the guards. "There are matters I must speak only to you and those who you most trust. Send out of the room all but two of your guards, and I will do the same."

Helen regarded her for a moment before responding. "I will see Eugenides alive before I trust your promises."

Irene nodded to one of her guards. "Bring him here," she instructed.

"Forgive me that I do not offer you the conventional food and drink due to a guest-friend while we wait," Irene said to Helen, "but what I must say is of great urgency."

For the first time since her arrival, Irene saw a hint of smile soften Helen's brows. "I've been treated to all the comforts of the road for the past week," Helen said, "I can wait a few more minutes for bread and wine, if in trust we come out of this meeting as guest-friends."

Eugenides, of course, was not far; the guard returned with him and servant, who bore him up and into a chair. For a moment, Irene did not look at Helen as she registered Gen's new pallor and the shock of his mutilation, but also his good clothes and the earring he wore, eccentrically, pinned to his tunic. She did not want to see the joy and pain of their reunion.

 _Mine,_ the voice of resentment crowed inside her, _you have had everything, Eddis; peace, security, a country who loves you as they would love a beloved older sister. But now, he is mine._

Then, of course, she had to look back, as Helen quietly sent all but one of her guards from the room. Irene did the same. When the room was empty but for the three of them, two guards, and the servant who had accompanied Gen, she began to speak.

"Right now," Irene said, "the Mede ambassador, Lord Nahuseresh, is being arrested by my soldiers for his plan to assassinate the Queen of Eddis. Letters will be found in his personal belongings confirming this plot."

Helen started.

"This will be a great embarrassment for the Medes, of course; it will show how little they understand of the delicate customs and politics of our nations. In recompense for the insult done to Eddis in my court, of course, I will be compelled to offer an alliance."

Helen gave out a short, bitter, bark of a laugh. "This is a lot of theatrics simply to offer me a better trade deal, Irene."

"No; I mean a different kind of alliance than that." She walked to Gen, as she had been longing to do since he entered the room. "The Medes are the greatest threat against us, Helen. You haven't had their ambassador in your court for months, but I have. They mean to devour us whole and spit out the bones. If we wish to remain free, governing by our own laws, under our own gods, and by the will of our people, we need to join as we have not before."

She watched Helen's inhale. "You've used my thief - you've tortured my thief - as a pretext for this negotiation? That is hardly the most civil way to begin an alliance."

Irene did not expect Gen to speak; his fever was receding steadily, but he was still undeniably ill. By his voice, though, one would hardly have known it; it was his own, dancing with suppressed laughter but, she thought, weighted in some way that it had not been before.

"No, my Queen," he said to Helen, "she married me."


End file.
